Back to Basics
Last summer I enrolled in a Financial Accounting class at a community college. The first day of class rolled around and I was terrified. 3.5 years I’d been in the working force, and to go back to school after having already earned my BA was hard for me to swallow. I expected to be surrounded by kids fresh out of high school, but it was a pleasant surprise to see that almost half of my peers were in the same place I was. Some had come out of the military, others were coming back after earning a Bachelor’s, and a few had decided to work right out of high school. It made me realize there are a lot more people going back for an Associate’s degree than I realized, and suddenly the knots in my stomach were gone.
There are many reasons people come back to school after having worked, and coming back for an Associate’s degree after having already earned my Bachelor’s was not as uncommon as I had thought. An article in The Hechinger Report cites the American Association of Community Colleges figure that one out of every 14 people who attend community college had already earned their Bachelor’s degree. Fortune’s article from 2012 discussed this same trend indicating that students with a Bachelor’s degree felt either skillfully unprepared for the work force, or weren’t able to find a job that utilized their degree’s field of study. Seeking a new direction in your career is clearly not that uncommon, so it shouldn’t surprise you if you share my sentiments and wish to go back to school to change directions.
When I graduated high school, there was no doubt in my mind that I would study Anthropology. My dream was to be a Forensic Anthropologist, but just a few short years later I realized that my passion was to work with people. While my Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology, or “The Study of Humans,” is a great foundation for working with people, it doesn’t give me the practical skills necessary to serve people. My love of Anthropology hasn’t faded, and that may be the case for many who choose to go back to school. I’ve simply evolved my love of the field into a hobby and try to stay current on the science. In the meantime, I study accounting and do my best to apply these new found skills to my work here at Morrison. It’s never too late (or too early) to get back to basics.
About the Author
Michelle Genova is Morrison’s Business and Marketing Coordinator. To get in touch with Michelle, please find contact information for Morrison here.